


playing on repeat

by arcadianwriter (noxstories)



Series: dream smp drabbles [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabble, Drug Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Oneshot, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:14:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29165538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxstories/pseuds/arcadianwriter
Summary: Quackity self destructs. Karl does too, in his own way. Both of them are there to pick up the pieces.[Based on a prompt given on tumblr.]
Relationships: (can be taken as romance!!), Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs, Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs
Series: dream smp drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141013
Comments: 3
Kudos: 67





	playing on repeat

**Author's Note:**

> thought i'd try something different!! i want to try writing shorter, snappier fics - i wrote three tonight that i'm pretty proud of that i'll post here. they're just quick insights into moments in the smp characters' lives, and most of them could be canon / fit into canon, so i hope you enjoy!!

“Tell me, Q,” Karl says quietly, “do the drugs still get you high?”

Quackity doesn’t answer, shuddering as his stomach churns nauseatingly. He’s not going to throw up - has nothing in his system to throw up - but it doesn’t stop him feeling like shit. All he can do is lie curled up on the bed, a sweaty, shivering wreck, while Karl hovers over him, feather light and barely present. 

“Because,” his friend continues, “I feel like- I never see you high and happy anymore. I see you normal, or I see you like this. Mostly like this.”

_ Because you’re never here, _ Quackity wants to snap at him,  _ wants to scream, because you’re off doing God knows what and lying to my face when I try and check up on you. _ His head throbs, eyes itching, and all he can do instead is let out an exhale, trying to ignore Karl’s words. He’s twenty fucking years old. He doesn’t need a lecture on drugs and addiction. God knows he’s given enough of them to Schlatt in the past, may he rest in pieces and in misery. “What do you want from me?” He forces out through clenched teeth and a hoarse throat. His voice is more slurred and shaken than he likes to focus on. “I’m not asking you to stay.”

Something touches his lips, and Quackity allows it - water, he realises gratefully, a glass of water, that he tries not to gulp, that soothes his throat and mouth. It does nothing for the fiery fierce shivering that’s devouring his body, or the ache inside of him that screams that if he just does another line, if he just does one more, then he’ll be happy, he’ll be free.

“I know,” Karl says, “but I’m going to.”

Quackity shifts as much as he dares, twisting to see his friend sitting next to him on the bed. Karl’s face is almost grey, skin ashen and features paler than he remembers. It looks like he’s fading away; even his hoodie is beginning to blend together, the colours greyer than ever before. It frightens Quackity sometimes, the feeling that he’s losing the one person he cares about more than anyone and that he can’t stop it. Closing his eyes again, he pictures Karl in a better time only months ago - bright, vibrant Karl, who had danced with him and giggled at his jokes and hosted stupid karaoke nights with him while Dream and George and Sapnap sang in the background. They’d both been different before all of this. Before Schlatt, before the wars.

_ I miss you,  _ he wants to say, but it won’t come out, because he knows logically that Karl is right there.

“Do you still get high?” Karl asks him again, fainter than before. 

Quackity squeezes his hand like a lifeline, and chooses not to tell Karl that the only thing the drugs do is keep him acting like how he used to. Instead, he presses his free hand against his eyes, and tries to pretend he’s not losing his best friend to something he doesn’t understand.

“Stay,” he mumbles rather than answer, tongue heavy in his mouth, “don’t go again.”

Karl tightens his grip on his hand, a silent promise.

“I won’t,” he says, “not this time, Q.”

And Quackity lets himself drift off into a haze of exhaustion and sleep, while Karl shuffles closer to him to brush his hair from his eyes. It’s nice. It’s like the old times, if he ignores the circumstances. And he thinks maybe, just for today, things might be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading, i hope you enjoyed!! if you did, consider leaving a kudos / comment - it means the world to me dbvkdsjvk, tysm again!! <3


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